SYMBOLIC SERENADE

The person who wants to get a strawberry tattoo saying that “My late mother was making strawberry jam in my dream last night”The person who named his son after his father who couldn’t see his grandson in that size saying “I became a father after my father passed away”The person who engraved their daughter’s footprints one in their heart and one right on top of their heart that they couldn’t manage to grow size by size because she passed away only four months and one day old.Being a signboard to our soul is the only virtue that distinguishes this art that confirms the current emotions, makes owned and stabilized and only can exist while they exist and perhaps there is no other word to explain.In fact, writing, expressing, eyes that laugh while crying inside, making them overflow while running, sweating while thinking, inhaled as much as expressed by music, injected into skin rather than to next generations. Writing lyrics to soil, with sculptures that being a slave for our souls that we host within but couldn’t purify enough, composing the colours, whispering into skin whistling.It’s like kneading and spreading the lines to most desired blackholes of our own skies.The tracks of places that we couldn’t be able to touch or mention to think but parceled out.Tattoo is the solid images of abstractions that are not possible to replace. The standing out corner of our showcase and our most delicious feast.If it is anger that engraved, diminishes. If it is love, glorifies. If it is a memory, makes you smile and never forget. If it is longing, joins it to you.It is partially the infinity that its dot sometimes returns to the very beginning maybe despite of comma.TATTOO IS A SENSUAL CEREMONY THAT TURNS INTO A SPIRITUAL QUILLFROM AN AREA OF THE TIP OF A NEEDLEWITHOUT BEING ABLE TO FILL A NUTSHELLWITH CHANGING THE COLOR OF A CELLINTO ANCIENT KNOWLEDGE THAT FORGOTTEN BEFORE BEING ABLE TO TOUGHTOUR SKIN THAT LEFT FALLOW INTO SOILOUR HAIR INTO FORESTS NO PEN ENTEREDBY CLIMBING OUR OWN GEOGRAPHY’S HILLS AND ROLLING INTO PITSIN THE SHADOW OF THE RAINBOWDIPPING THE WINE MADE FROM GRAPEWINES OF EDEN INTO INKWELL
It also has a sound which scares you, makes you love, makes you miss, without thunder and seeds bodies of womb, releases fetal ideas and quiets down.
Our obscurities that happened or to be happened in a scene fitting into one opinion and infinite commentaries, it is the other half of us that reflects our faces in the mirror.It is the treats tastes like mother’s handmade jam, an accessory that we can’t manage to lose and lifetime guaranteed.Father’s name in his son, and the same size of the mother’s heart that became a pathway for feet never grew. It has the same effect in love and peace. It is an emotion expressed and entered the eye.Like all creatures in nature, borns fresh, gets old but never die.The effect of that slight pain of the tiny needle, mentioned, is an esoteric transfer to whom is not possible to see, can’t be able to shown.The darkness within owerflows to the cup before being filled up yet from nature’s wind and water.From transformers where electricity is stored in static and stabilized to states, cities, streets and buildings then the adapter that I plug in and from there the two beauties rush what’s going on, energy, like gossiping, to my machine, ready for conductivity.The power that couldn’t be isolated, gets dimension in digital display, slinks from clip cord to womb, maybe programmed to take its last victory, like the pigment particles that only attend to this race when altogether, runs into every pixel of that whole.Becoming the god of balance which it can’t be a servant of, The virgin buzzing of the queen bee is in the humming of the mechanical organs of the metal mechanism Missed like the breathtaking taste of the strawberry jam of that mother. Only the coils will transfer the generations to the tip of the needle. Traditions must arise from colours so that the tailor who steps on the pedal can untangle te loop when it tangles.Say that, with their two fingers straighten the fabric, sew soul to  corpse, ink to skinSay that if only for you couldn’t say, such a pattern that everybody understands immediately.Sometimes even if no one sees, if only it becomes important as unimportance of the times after first, the formality of the Picture of becoming numb for its desperate pain.To venture its size, without estimation small as cut out, fences didn’t Bloom, limited but edgeless.Say that if I become the ocean and fish swim inside me..Say that if my aquarium didn’t have glass, in my own jungles birds are the king this time, or say that if lotus flowers Bloom in my backyard in spite of climate Say that in my universe I will sprinkle my stars in galaxies that I want, without their tails collide.Say that if music notes enter from my neck not from my earsIf only my dice turn from snake eyes, if my skin is imaginary, say that if only the theaters inside me had curtains, opens the forgotten quotes prompt by prompt.My bride that got henna, say that draw a chest for my dowrySay that If I were Bastet in ancient Egypt, perhaps people put a bowl of water in front of their doors for meSay that I can tell the difference between being a Janisarry and a samuraiSay that pour two glasses of tears under for free while you are looking to silhouette of İstanbul inside the tear bottle of a GeishaSay that engrave the person you want to forget most to don’t forget and find without searchingIf you add life to life of butterflies, if only they start to flutter from your tummyIf you cover up your past, say that can you draw my tribalized dreams surrealistically to masterSay that if they order a smiley for my pain from other table, if only the waiter understands immediatelySay that I started getting tattoo with infinity, then if you get a treble clef extreme fascistSay that evil eye should land on my fairy’s Wings and if the competent remain silent, even though they can’t say or drawSay that don’t let the blue of the ladybug look like the corner of clover, the shadow of the star look like rasp of the willow, key of the pipe look like Picture in the song, fire look like water, water look like earth, earth look like air but don’t make it too bigSay that “let’s make it from mind to there” and leave the rest to me.Say that I want it on you not on me but if you can’t say that to themSay that put a ribbon on the gift presented to my beingSay that how much is a session of resisting to things that couldn’t be imposed and then my machine becomes silentSay that let’s pick a font for my destiny, if you pay by its width but if you don’t get the length Say that draw a red light in my eyes, draw the midwife of babies I couldn’t give birth for meSay that my put my label on the same place and in same color when I belong or I own and even when I’m a victim of traditions.Say that there should be big shoes for my little feet, without a bondSo that the grapes don’t get crushed fullyIf the hinges of the doors of your knees were a dream in your dreams, say that “Don’t hit anymore I’m dying, I was out to get some bread,” I became the bread for the soil which should be cultivated.Say that if I had a land size 41 in my ward, it makes your feet above your headSometimes say that it’s okay if you don’t say everSay that “does it wipe out if I cry” and then if you laugh immediatelySay that I am abundant of designs, I owe you, I want a mask of judgement day inside a pumpkinIf every strand of your hair wraps around coils without bleeding and if they sear the wounds.If a shepherd for two pipes, twines snakes then doesn’t let the rats raid into villageSay that let’s pass this to waves of silence while scattering the ashes of the leaves that burned before they could turn yellow from the forests that you waxedSay that I will wear my piercings on the ozone layer that you pierced without painIf you can’t reach with words even if you described thoroughly, put the hook of the fishing rod in your hair, if fish understand and don’t buy itIf casual life worths a penny beats its rug even though you said please don’t beatForging is not enough for that iron it needs also water, loving is not enough fort hat heart it needs also suffer, my sayings don’t come to an end they want silence,  say that may the design be within if get scabs inside outIf I could let it snow into your craters with my finger tips, every crack is a canyon, erosion of my surface, say that if I rubbed and burrowed in my heartSay that draw a bridle form y sorrow without evil, if you break the needle in the middle That design if became that, even if it was that in every designSay that I loved its timbre away from sound, being near to eye fixed into flesh and belonged to me and if you own it, even if you die it staysGrooves of body that flows into soul, intentions without difference or thinking bad, triangles that are bigger than their circles, breasts that bloomed in its squareroot, iftar feasts with forbidden apples, empty sack of the achieved shepherd, unstudied questions came from unread book, say that empty options may be shining that worth i didn’t mentionIf you puff and exceed the limits of the promile of emotions, as you serve you love your sentence, say that engrave the details of my family tree with forgivingThere was always an empty space as much as your crime in my puzzleSay that I want the number of my unissued ticket on my side, if you pay with your days stealing from my existence then we become evenIf you fill their lunchbox with the sound of a phoenix, the child be sated with its ashesIf the teenagers pulls their oars upstream like a koiIf Buffalos of Mandala can’t exist without each other May the Flames of the dragon become flint to my lighter, salt to my stoneSay that I am the one that couldn’t dip my bread into the potion of Pandora, don’t plunder with your needleSay that pierce my chest if I’m overflowing, become the key, if it’s a requiem it becomes a balladIt’s like the kiss of lover that sticks on skinThe blanket laid on cold private partsTattoo is trustful hand of a father that witnessed rusting grape juiceBridle for it’s mane, easel for its question, last Word in letter and a little symbolic serenadeIt is the sails of silent rebellions on our deck, album cover that’s in theme of our life that didn’t sold wellIt is the laundry hanging from our balcony that we hanged proudly and with lamentIt is the unpoured lead traces of the bullet casing of the marble of the slingshottattoo is the pulp of brightness that didn’t ash yet, the neck that didn’t bow of unburned match, ash that couldn’t be scattered.tattoo is the tile that didn’t floored, bluff in poker, the last glass that isn’t drunk, suffering that couldn’t be let outIt is often the sea shining that work passed through inside, shadow casted outside, particles of planktons that pulls to the deepWhat’s the dance of dandelions to neyza? They cover the shame of their ney, they blow to us blow like windIt is the tropical sera of medical nightmares that injected into your prescriptionIt is the apology you toasted your drunkenness, the fortune in your destiny, the wish that postponed, the fast of princess that didn’t brokeThe homesickness of the girls marching on high hillsIt becomes a unicorn that gallops, flies then lands on the graffities on our Adobe wallsIt is the unwritten voucher of the engravins of the shop that we can rent only for a lifetime, it is the weawing with needle and thread to our bonesTattoo is our recreation areas that smoke comes from grill, breach to linesIt is the overflowed water from the vase that is more beautiful than its flower of a windowless room with bosphorus viewIt is the sunrays pass through the roofing of a gazebo, last dream before waking up, the first coffee in the morning, not the darkness of your heart it is the black of the ink that engraved on its curtainCleanliness into their dirt, harm to their Messenger, cure for their troubles, the talisman flows from the machine of tattoo artist It’s the sand borders the sea from ground to skyIt is the rose that reaper can’t reap, the mute that can’t pronounce. It is the fearless repentance of who is a human, bold escapes, confessions filled with mysteryGetting ready for battle with veil, running away wrappedAlien stays inside the sleeve, outside of arm The stamps with mermaids of unopened envelope, if only sun rises from the crest of an hourglass then sets, in its degrades in spite of contrast, If only the retouch of the lettering is done after summer before flaky snowYou say that draw pleat without suffering on my dress, if I go through the tacking without tangent. If the lining becomes my face You were the jokes that sting with the needle I found in haystack of my jargon, you said may you be and I’ve been.
Mehmet Ali Pehlivan 2015 TATTOOMIX  ISTANBUL
Translated to English by Ece Melis Canyüksel